hen the hands that made it shall have gone to
dust.

And this is a good place and time to think of home--of what we begin
to hear called by her younger children, _Old_ New England. Trees
with us have passed through the two periods specified by Solomon--"a
time to plant and a time to pluck up." The last came first and
lasted for a century. Trees were the natural enemies to the first
settlers, and ranked in their estimation with the wild Indians,
wolves and bears. It was their first, great business to cut them
down, both great and small. Forests fell before the woodman's axe.
It made clean work, and seldom spared an oak or an elm. But, at the
end of a century, the people relented and felt their mistake. Then
commenced "the time to plant;" first in and around cities like
Boston, Hartford, and New Haven, then about villages and private
homesteads. Tree-planting for use and ornament marks and measures
the footsteps of our civilization. The present generation is
reaping a full reward of this gift to the next. Every village now
is coming to be embowered in this green legacy to the future; like a
young mother decorating a Christmas-tree for her children. Towns
two hundred years old are taking the names of this diversified
architecture, and they glory in the title. New Haven, with a
college second to none on the American Continent, loves to be called
"The Elm City," before any other name. This generous and elevating
taste is making its way from ocean to ocean, even marking the sites
of towns and villages before they are built. I believe there is an
act of the Connecticut Legislature now in force, which allows every
farmer a certain sum of money for every tree he plants along the
public roadside of his fields. The object of this is to line all
the highways of the State with ornamental trees, so that each shall
be a well-shaded avenue. What a gift to another generation that
simple act is intended to make! What a world of wonder and delight
will our little State be to European travellers and tourists of the
next century, if this measure shall be carried out! If a few miles
of such avenues as Burghley Park and Chatsworth present, command
such admiration, what sentiments would a continuous avenue of trees
of equal size from Hartford to New Haven inspire!

While on this line of reflection, I will mention a case of
monumental tree-planting in New England, not very widely known
there. A small town, in the heart of